Awakening the sleeping SABC giant
In November 2020, SABC 1 and SABC 2 achieved advertising sell-out status during prime time for the first time in over five years. GLENDA NEVILL caught up with the broadcaster’s new head of sales, Reginald Nxumalo, to find out how.
Some people are saying it’s the first time in years that they’ve seen so many proposals coming out of the SABC sales division
Reginald Nxumalo
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themediaonline.co.za
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s anyone working in the media sector knows, the South African Broadcasting Corporation has suffered mightily under a series of boards beholden to whichever communications minister was in office at the time, and executive managers (Hlaudi, we see you) who were happy to facilitate such a state of affairs while continuing to spend and spend and spend as if the SABC’s advertising coffers were overflowing. It’s been a roller-coaster ride for the SABC since then, with a new board in place, new executives at the helms of key departments, a R3.2-billion bailout that came with a strict Treasury-approved turnaround plan, Special Investigative Unit investigations, sweeping retrenchments and then, of course, Covid-19. Reginald Nxumalo was appointed head of sales at the SABC in May 2020, a tricky time to be tackling a new job and undertaking a massive restructuring of the public broadcaster’s commercial side. Six months later, the SABC reported an upswing in its advertising fortunes. Nxumalo had promised a new way of working, and it was starting to deliver.
